Viewing profile — markdjacobsen

My own experience presiding over startup failure was excruciating. I had a serious personal breakdown that took a couple years to recover from. There was the burnout, but also a de…

On a related note, a science fiction short story anthology titled "Derelict" was published in 2021. When they were soliciting stories, I thought long and hard about how to put a cr…

I spent a year and a half building a "startup" of my own (actually, a humanitarian nonprofit) that failed. I can relate to the author's painful emotions as he processes his experie…

I wrote a book called “Eating Glass” about the grueling emotional and psychological experience of presiding over a prolonged startup failure, coping with the aftermath, and finding…

I just replicated something very similar in a few minutes using the prompts in the article

I have been successful by most standards, with a litany of professional and educational achievements, a wonderful wife, three beautiful kids, and a life of exciting new experiences…

This is a good post, and I'm always glad to see discussions about mental health anywhere in the startup scene. However, I agree with the other commenters who note that healthy rout…

I have the dubious distinction of having burned down three acres of Stanford's Lake Lagunita with a Li Po battery after crashing a drone (this was a soft pack for a DIY drone). We …

The fact that you care about employee development and are deliberately seeking out ways to do it better puts you ahead of most managers. I can't directly address advancement within…

I'm sorry you've been going through this. I can relate somewhat. I have been successful by most standards, but made large sacrifices for "paths less taken" that didn't work out lik…

Zotero and Obsidian is a killer combination. If anyone is interested, I have some videos on research tools that include a Zotero->Zotfile/MDNotes->Obsidian workflow: https://www.yo…

I'm sorry you're going through this. I went through a dark night of the soul a few years ago amidst some professional setbacks. More recently, I've been on the edge of losing my 17…

I know your questions are practical, and you have not disclosed your emotional state, but I also know firsthand that shutting down a startup can be traumatic. Even as you address t…

See https://www.c4isrnet.com/air/2020/10/09/the-air-force-update...

Other thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28407219

HN has two threads on this now. I just replied on the other but will copy here: I can't speak for Chaillan, but as a military member who led an agile software development team simi…

I can't speak for Chaillan, but as a military member who led an agile software development team similar to his during the same timeframe, I think he's referring to DoD's fondness f…

> burnout often involves pouring too much of your heart and soul into something that does not love you back. I describe burnout now as a kind of "unrequited love." I authored this …

This is a powerful piece that resonates with my own experience. I went through a period of severe burnout that took me a couple years to recover from. One of my later insights was …

I'll echo others here; Obsidian is an amazing tool. For those who are curious about Obsidian, I recently created a YouTube video series for my graduate students titled "Tools for t…

This is good advice and absolutely true. I badly burned myself out with my first "startup" (a technical nonprofit) and needed a couple years to heal. I went into my second much wis…

Author here. I recently released a book titled "Eating Glass: The Inner Journey Through Failure and Renewal", which I wrote in the aftermath of a painful entrepreneurial failure. N…

Thanks! That’s largely what I was trying to write in opposition to. You find a lot of “here’s how I failed my way to success, and you can too” pieces. That’s not particularly helpf…

A few years ago, I presided over the failure of a nonprofit I'd founded. It was the most devastating experience of my life and involved all the emotions here: grief, anger, depress…